Government of Sanctaria
| Government of Sanctaria | |
|---|---|
 Sanctarian Coat of Arms | |
| Overview | |
| Established | 19 November 1974 |
| State | Sanctaria |
| Leader | Prime Minister |
| Appointed by | Prime Minister and Ministers approved by Parliament, ceremonially appointed by the President |
| Main organ | Cabinet |
| Ministries | 19 |
| Responsible to | Parliament |
| Headquarters | Government Manor Sanctus, Sanctaria |
The Government of Sanctaria is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Sanctaria.
The Constitution of Sanctaria vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the Prime Minister, the head of government. The government is composed of government ministers, called Secretaries of State, all of whom must be members of the Parliament of Sanctaria. The Prime Minister must be nominated and approved by the House of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament. Following the House's nomination, the President of Sanctaria appoints the Prime Minister to his/her role.
Secretaries of State must be nominated by the Prime Minister and approved by the Senate, the upper house of Parliament. The President then also appoints these members of the government. The government is dependent upon Parliament to make primary legislation and, as such, the government needs to command a majority in the House of Deputies in order to ensure support and confidence for budgets and government bills to pass. Collectively the government is known as 'the cabinet".
The current Prime Minister is Charlene Hendry who took office on 28 February 2018. She is the leader of the Democratic Left Party, the party with the majority of seats in the House. The Deputy Prime Minister is Niamh Winters who took office on 01 March 2018.
Membership
Membership of the cabinet is regulated by the Constitution of Sanctaria, and by the Government Secretaries Acts 1974 to 2018. The Sanctarian constitution requires the government to consist of at least six members, with no maximum limit, all of whom must be members of Parliament.
Prior to constitutional changes in 2012, there were no limits on how many members of the Senate, the upper house of parliament, were permitted to be members of Government; since then, no more than two members of the Senate are permitted to be a member of the Government, primarily because the constitutional changes at the time sought to give more independence to each house. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and Secretary for the Treasury are required to be members of the House of Deputies, the lower house of parliament.
Members of the government in charge of government departments are designated Secretaries of State. Prior to 2018, junior ministers, or assistant secretaries, were also appointed to assist the running of government departments, but were not members of the government, and were answerable to the Secretary of State responsible for the department they were assigned to. Ministers without portfolio may be appointed as members of the government without being appointed as the head of a department, though this has not yet occurred in Sanctarian governmental history; legislation for this specifies such ministers are to be designated Secretaries-at-large.
Non-members attending cabinet
Non members of government may be invited to attend cabinet meetings, but without voting rights. Such members may otherwise participate fully and receive circulated confidential cabinet papers on the same basis as a full member of Government. Typically, these non-members include the Attorney General, and the Chief Whip of the party in power.
The Attorney General is a constitutional office who, while not formally a member of the Government, is obliged to attend cabinet meetings in their role as legal advisor to the Government. To date all Attorneys General have not been members of parliament and have instead been leading solicitors or advocates, but there is no prohibition on appointing a member of parliament as Attorney General.
Prior to the abolition of junior ministers and assistant secretaries in 2018, it was normal for the Prime Minister of the day to invite those ministers to cabinet meetings when topics under their portfolio were being discussed.
Term of office
The Government serves in office until the nomination of a new Prime Minister by the House. Prior to 2013, the maximum term was 7 years by law, which most governments served; since then the maximum term is set to 5 years.
The Government must enjoy the confidence of the House of Deputies if it is to remain in office. If the Prime Minister ceases to retain the support of a majority in the House, either the House must be dissolved or the Prime Minister must resign. This applies only in cases of a no-confidence vote, or the loss of a supply (i.e. budgetary) vote, rather than a simple government bill being rejected. The President may refuse to grant a dissolution to a Prime Minister who does not enjoy the support of the House, thereby forcing the resignation of the Prime Minister. Current convention, however, is that a President will always allow a dissolution to a Prime Minister when requested; the power to refuse a dissolution has never been invoked.
When the Prime Minister resigns, the entire Government is deemed to have resigned as a collective. The Prime Minister may also direct the President to dismiss or accept the resignation of individual Secretaries. When the House or Parliament as a whole is dissolved, the Prime Minister and the entire Government is similarly deemed to have vacated their offices. The offices remain vacant until a new government is appointed, with no new policies announced or enacted in the interim, and government departments only exercising day-to-day obligations.
Authority and powers
Unlike cabinets in other parliamentary systems, the Government is both the de jure and de facto executive authority in Sanctaria. The Constitution explicitly vests executive authority in the Government, not the President. In other parliamentary regimes, the head of state is usually the nominal chief executive, though bound by convention to act on the advice of the cabinet.
The executive authority of the Government is subject to certain limitations, however. In particular:
- The state may not declare war, or participate in a war, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament. In the case of an actual invasion, however, the Government is permitted to "take whatever steps they may consider necessary for the protection of the state".[1]
- Treaties must be laid before the Senate.
- The Government must act in accordance with the Constitution.
History
The first Government of Sanctaria took office on coming into force of the Constitution of Sanctaria on 19 November 1974 following the establishment of the Divine Republic of Sanctaria after the death of Patriarch Aequitas, head of the Sanctarian Catholic Church, and the break-up of the Papal States of Sanctaria that he, by virtue of his office, headed.
The detail and structure of the Government of Sanctaria has its legislative basis in the Government Secretaries Act, 1974; it has been amended on a number of occasions, most recently 2018, and these may be cited together as the Government Secretaries Acts 1974 to 2018 and are construed as one Act.
All Governments bar one have consisted of one party in a majority government, the leader of that party always becoming Prime Minister; the 2nd Government of Sanctaria from 1981 to 1986 was a coalition government between the Sanctarian Conservative Party and the Christian Union Party - the Prime Minister in this instance was the leader of the largest party.
Governments of Sanctaria
1st Government of Sanctaria
The first Government of Sanctaria was formed on 19 November 1974 following elections earlier in the year for a Parliament that was to be formed on coming into effect of the Constitution of Sanctaria. The largest party was the Christian Union Party, and their leader, Rev. Eric Childerson, was appointed Sanctaria's first Prime Minister.
Secretaries of State are listed by seniority as per the Government Secretaries Acts 1974 to 2018. A reshuffle took place on 17 September 1979.
The following attended cabinet meetings, but did not have a vote:
| Office | Name | Term | Party | |
| Attorney General | Robert Hogan | 1974—1981 | Independent | |
| Government Chief Whip | James Boyd | Christian Union Party | ||
2nd Government of Sanctaria
3rd Government of Sanctaria
4th Government of Sanctaria
5th Government of Sanctaria
6th Government of Sanctaria
7th Government of Sanctaria
8th Government of Sanctaria
References
- ↑ Legal scholars, however, have suggested that because another constitutional provision obligates the Government to act in accordance with the Constitution, "whatever steps they may consider necessary" does not amount to or include suspending the Constitution itself, as is permissible in other systems.